


Regrets

by redheadturkey



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 23:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14147133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadturkey/pseuds/redheadturkey
Summary: No one among the Scions realized how the events after the Vault affected the intrepid Chosen of Hydelean, or how close he and the Lord of Dragonhead had become until it was far too late. It is not until another takes a walk through his memories as he has done with others that he gains a champion that can truly understand.





	Regrets

The snow seemed to drift before gleaming teal eyes. . .falling and gathering in fire red locks that are long on top, short in the back, falling in feathered spikes into a face that was almost feminine in its ethereal prettiness, though the body beneath it was far from, clad in the shimmering silver-blue armor. _I wish I had spoken the words you wanted to hear._ A long, slender tail twitched and swayed behind the metal-encased frame, tapered, furred ears pressed back against his skull. _Though such things are frowned upon between two men, and yet further between a Knight of Ishgard, a Son of one of the Great Houses and an outsider. Even if that outsider should be the Warrior of Light._

The Miqo’te’s heart had shattered when the spear had flown, pushing through the shield that he even now held in his hands, dark magic of a type that he had seen far too many times, and piercing the heart of the young Fortemps bastard son that had made him feel so welcome when he had first arrived in the Holy See.

He’d never expected anything more than friendship to happen between them when he’d first met the near-always smiling Elezen in the Dragonhead camp when he’d first come to Coerthas, but on the first night there, a nightmare had woken him, and he’d drawn Haurchefant, who’d been in the room right next door to him at the time, to check on him as he’d been woken screaming and shaking. After a bit of prodding, the story of the attack on the Waking Sands and how it had left him feeling empty, useless, and a failure had poured out like wine, even unbidden because of the expectations upon him.

After that, the two had been thick as thieves, a bond that Remial had never expected to grow to anything more, and yet it had, and in daydreams as he stood out here on the cold cliff, he could see in his mind’s eye again those nights when he had very nearly said it, laying in the silvery haired man’s arms, body humming from the skills he’d had no idea the other had.

“He’d not want this, you know.” The voice belonged to Emmanalain, and for a moment the scarlet haired head jerked up. Their voices sound too damn much alike. “I knew, you know, and before you ask, no it was not that obvious, I’m simply that observant.” The smarmy tone was absent from the normally cocky Fortemps younger boy’s voice, despite his words.

A sharp breath issued from him, he’d not even heard Emmanalain come out onto the cliff. “Did you know it’s been a bare six moons since the end of the first war with Garlemald? Since Thancred’s near death? Three since the fall of the Waking Sands, since I watched poor Noxia die before my eyes after trying to defend my fellows? One since I watched what I believed was my dear friend, the Sultana of the great city state of Ul’dah die from wine I had poured for her? Yes, it turned out to be false, she still lives, and you can imagine my relief at that, but still. My friends, falling one by one to see to it that I escaped alive.” The next he drew was shaky, nearly ending on a sob, until the grief which burned like a flame behind his breastbone was buried, as he near always did simply so he could function. “Sure, Alphinaud and Tataru live still, something for which I am eternally grateful, but Minfilia, and Thancred are still lost to me, as is Yda and now. . .now the one I had finally allowed my guard down for, the one that I had allowed myself to love is gone."

Eyes were cast out into the snowy wastes that lay beyond the bluff on which he stood, a cold sting touching his cheeks. _Tears_. . . he realized. “How long am I supposed to be the stoic, Emmanalain? How much am I expected to endure with a smile without falter when right now the only thing I want to do is leap from this cliff and pray to the Twelve that Halone gathers me into her arms and carries me into her halls to join my beloved?”

“I certainly don’t expect you not to feel.” The dark-haired man shrugged a bit at that. To be honest, he was struggling with the grief for his brother as well, even if he, like Remial, did his best not to show it. “Look, I know how hard this is for you. Warrior of Light or no, as much as your friends seem to forget this, you’re still human. “ As out of character as most might have thought it for the younger of the Fortemps lordlings, in reality Emmanalain saw and understood a lot more than many people imagined he did, as was shown when he reached over and gave Remial’s steel-clad shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Take off your armor for a while, come back to the manor, give yourself time to grieve. If you do not, you’ll break later, and what good would that do?” 

“But. . . ?” he looked up at Emmanalain, then away, shaking his head as if to say he couldn’t do that. If he stopped, he’d fall apart and perhaps not be able to pick up all the pieces, but the other man’s face remained resolute. 

“Do not but me, Remial Antares.” the lordling spoke the Warrior of Light’s full name with a bite to his tone that he had heard far too many times from his own father Count Fortemps, and Emmanalain hoped it’d have the same effect it had on him of making the other man take pause and listen. “My brother would not want you dead. Are you really going to put his sacrifice to waste that way? Besides, the world will still be here when you are ready to pick yourself back up and get back on your feet. It can be without its great hero for a while.” 

 

Something inside of him began to shiver, faint cracks like a glass statue dropped from the top of a table forming, and he felt as if one tiny touch would be enough to send the shards flying as soon as he let down his guard, but he knew Emmanalain was right. So it was that a single hand reached, almost blindly, to be gripped by the other’s own warm hand, only now beginning to develop the callouses from holding a sword, one which was used to lead him from the bluff on which Haurchefant’s grave rested and back toward the aetheryte to return to the city proper.


End file.
